[V8C12] The Pretty Boy and the Witch
Translated by Jodas 8: The Witch of the Boundary“…Are you the Witch?”
The woman’s mouth stayed shut, saying nothing in response to Wren’s question. But, through the veil that obscured her eyes, he could feel a faint gaze upon him.
Somehow, he could feel he was being tested.
So Wren desperately put his exhausted mind to work. First, he had to communicate the situation they were in.
“Tia’s hurt real bad. I want to let her recover somewhere with dense mana. The mana’s dense here, right? If it is, I’d like to have Tia rest here for a while, but…”
As expected, the Witch said nothing.
Wren shrunk back a little, then for the first time took notice of the room he was in.
The room itself wasn’t very large. It was only about the size of a personal study. Shelves lined both sides of the room, with bottles of what looked like medicinal herbs and books lining each shelf.
But not all of the books could fit on the shelves, and several of them were piled up on the floor instead.
Most distinctive of all were the glass balls of all colors hanging from the ceiling.
Some of the glass balls were the size of his head, while others were only the size of his fist.
At first, he assumed that she had used dyes to stain clear glass balls, but on further inspection, the colors were swirling around inside of the glass.
Even with his honed sense for aesthetics, Wren couldn’t tell what was inside. It looked like colored liquid, but also like colored smoke, though it was hard to call it either.
(Right. According to Tia’s story, this Witch wants colors.)
Most likely, whatever that is floating around in these glass balls were the colors she’d extracted from her deals.
Wren returned his gaze away from the balls and back towards the Witch.
“Don’t tell me, you’re waiting for some kind of contract or price? Um… Colors and mana, was it? …I don’t have a whole lot of mana, but colors… Should I go find you something pretty?”
The Witch casually lifted her right arm.
As she did, one of the glass balls detached from the ceiling and floated into her hand.
“Unfortunately,”
Suddenly, the Witch began to speak, startling Wren.
Hers was a beautiful, yet chilling voice.
“I already have enough.”
Did she have enough colors or mana? He wasn’t sure, but his leverage for making a deal with the Witch suddenly evaporated.
‘What do I try next?’ Wren thought, but was interrupted by the Witch speaking again.
“Do me a service.”
“…If I do, would you let Tia rest?”
Instead of answering, the Witch started to hum some sort of ancient tune as she lifted her right arm up.
When she did, two rose vines emerged from her feet.
One led out into the hallway, so it must have been there to guide him like the one from earlier.
The other one snaked up the shelf to Wren’s right and clutched a medicine bottle.
The rose vine offered the medicine bottle to Wren. Inside were pale yellow candies. Wren glared at the label on the bottle.
(This is… The Ridillian language? …And an old form of it, I think…)
Thankfully, much of the ancient language still came across even in the present day.
Wren had learned Ridillian from Rose, so with much effort, he was able to decipher the part that said ‘Three times a day. Mana neutralizer.’
(If I take this three times a day, it could neutralize mana? I’ve never seen a medicine like this…)
Fearfully, Wren asked the Witch.
“Wait… Does this place already have really dense mana?”
She didn’t respond, but he had a feeling that he was right. After all, he’d been feeling awfully lightheaded for a while now.
He’d just assumed it was due to his exhaustion and nervousness, but it seemed that wasn’t all. This was probably the early onset of mana poisoning.
Wren set Tia down on the ground, then tossed one of the candies into his mouth.
The candy carried the fragrance of roses and herbs, and tasted sweet and refreshing. As he rolled it around in his mouth, he could feel the muggy sensation slowly lifting.
‘You should explain important things like this!’ Swallowing his instinct to make such complaints, Wren thanked the Witch.
“Thank you, Witch, for the candies.”
Once again, no response.
Suddenly, curiosity struck, and Wren asked a question.
“By the way, Are you the kind of person who finds talking exhausting, Witch? In that case, I’ll try not to talk to you too much…”
He’d noticed this by observing the Witch’s body language, but she was awfully lethargic and looked to be avoiding moving her body as much as possible. In that case, Wren considered that speaking might be painful for her, or something along those lines.
After a brief moment of silence, the Witch opened her beautiful lips and spoke coldly.
“I hate commotion.”
“Roger that. I’ll be a quiet little pretty boy, so don’t worry about me!”
Wren picked Tia back up and walked off in the direction indicated by the rose vines.
The rose vines led him to a small room that appeared to be a bedroom.
Its decor resembled that of the room the Witch was in earlier, but this one had a bed in it.
Once Wren had removed Tia’s bloodstained shirt and boots and set her down on the bed, he sat down on a wooden stool and breathed a long sigh.
He was tired. Unbelievably exhausted. He had half a mind to just fall asleep right here, but there were still some things he needed to do.
First, Wren spoke to the rose vine beside him.
“Hey, does this place have a well? I’d like to wash off some of the blood…”
The rose vine slinked away, so Wren got up and followed it.
The rose vine headed outside of the house, to a well in the garden. A suitable bucket sat nearby, so Wren filled it up with water and brought it back to Tia.
As he wiped her wounds with a wet handkerchief, he got a good sense of the conditions of those wounds. The bleeding had already stopped, and the wounds were starting to close. He could only marvel at a Monster’s incredible recovery speed.
Once Tia’s body was cleaned, it was time to clean her clothes. In the time it took for him to wash and mend her bloodstained clothing, the sky was already starting to turn dark. Night was soon approaching.
(I bet Oliver and the others are super worried about us… I hope Mr. Hütter and Sevil are safe…)
To be honest, he wondered if he should light a signal fire here.
But it would probably be best for him not to do anything that would reveal this location — the Witch’s house — to other humans. If he let the secret out, he would have a lot of explaining to do, but he had a feeling the Witch might kill him even before then.
(Is that Kai guy not here right now? That’s convenient for me, but… Once Tia recovers, I should probably get out of here as soon as possible.)
While he would love to interrogate the Witch about all manner of things, he doubted he would get much of an answer out of her in that state.
He should be grateful that she even allowed him to stay over.
(She even gave me those mana-neutralizing candies… Aren’t these candies kinda insane?)
When Wren stuck his hand in his pocket, he remembered that he’d also put the bottle of the candies that let Tia turn back into Harpy form there as well.
He took out the two bottles and examined them.
The medicine to allow a Harpy masquerading as a human to turn back into her real form.
And the medicine that neutralized the effects of mana in mana-dense areas.
Neither of them where the kind of things you could get at your average apothecary.
(Just who is this Witch…?)
He’d worried that the Witch might get mad if he just walked around her house without permission, but when he spoke to the rose vine that guided him, it led him to rooms that looked like a laundry room and a kitchen. The kitchen was stocked with plenty of non-perishable ingredients.
While he didn’t get the feeling that the Witch herself needed to do such things, there was evidence of someone living all throughout this house. Most likely, it was that man called Kai who was living here.
Once Wren finished the laundry and assessing the food supplies in the kitchen, he returned to the Witch’s room. He wanted to see if she was willing to let him have some of her food.
After all, he’d barely had anything to eat all day. Wren wasn’t a big eater, but he was still growing.
Just as before, the Witch was sitting on top of the pile of books. As if she was just an ornament someone put there.
In his quietest pretty boy voice, Wren softly spoke to her.
“Great Witch, would you be willing to allow me to have some of your food? Even just a little bit of bread and stew would be… No, if you’d allow me to be presumptuous, I would like to have some of the berries and apples growing in the garden.”
The Witch lifted a single finger, summoning a rose vine that carried something. A lantern.
“Do as you wish.”
Wren couldn’t help himself from letting out a shout of glee.
“Thanks Witch!”
After cheerfully giving his thanks, he hurriedly covered his mouth. Crap. Crap. Wren was supposed to be a quiet little pretty boy.
“Do you want to eat anything, Witch? I can make something for you?”
“No need.”
“…Hmm, okay. I got it.”
As he took the lantern from the rose vine, he observed the Witch out of the corner of his eye.
She had a bountiful breast and a slender waist. The contrast of the black dress that enveloped her attractive body and her vibrant red curls was breathtaking. He couldn’t get a good view of her face, but he had a feeling that too was gorgeous.
Yet… Ah, yet… How should he put it?
The first thing that came to Wren’s mind was, of all things, his fellow apprentice Rose and his fuzzy red hair.
(I guess they’ve got the same hair color, you know……. Oh no, it’s totally way too rude to compare her to that fuzzy, muscular Rose, I’m sorryyyyy…!)
Feeling a little disgusted with himself, Wren promptly left the room.
He lit the lantern, grabbed a suitable basket, and headed out to the garden.
At night, the garden had yet another kind of creepiness to it aside from the jumbled seasons. Wren wasted no time heading to where the early summer plants grew and searched for berries.
Earlier, Wren had spotted a tree with berries by the early summer flowers.
“Oh, there it is, there it is…”
Afraid of the deathly silence for whatever reason, Wren intentionally spoke out loud as he plucked some raspberries.
He had the lantern illuminating them, but the night was still too dark for him to judge which ones were ripe enough.
Curious about the flavor, Wren popped one into his mouth. He was stunned. Out of all the berries he’d ever eaten, this was by far the most delicious.
“This is amazing…! It’s so juicy, and the flavor is super rich!”
It was juicy, but not watery at all. It had the sweetness of concentrated fruit juice, and a refreshingly sour aftertaste.
‘Tia has to try some of these.’ Wren thought as he plucked more berries into the basket.